Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Sharing a Beer with the Ol' Ball Coach

Over on the Georgia Sports Blog, PWD lists Steve Spurrier as the #1 coach he'd like to share a beer with. I can't believe I've never told the story on this blog, but I actually spent a couple of hours watching football with him one Saturday in the Raleigh Durham International airport last fall.

At that point in time I was working for myself and one of my regular clients was in North Carolina. It was a Saturday flight out of town, and I got to the airport fairly early and set up in one of the little generic airport bars to catch the games of the day while I waited. Unbeknown to me, Spurrier was in town for the UNC @ Duke game for the anniversary of his ACC championship team at Duke and after the game he must have come straight to the airport, because he ended up taking the bar stool next to me, ordering a beer and immediately asking to the couple of people around "So what happened so far today?" At this point, my brain registered that the visored one himself was trying to catch up on the scores, so we gave him a quick rundown. Auburn v. Alabama was the main game on at the moment, and we spent the next two hours listening to him break down each of the plays on a level that I had never even considered. I learned more about football in that two hour period than I have in any other setting, and consumed several beers in the process.

Spurrier was basically what you'd expect - down to earth, funny as hell and quite frequently poking fun at himself for his recent stint with the Redskins. He refused to talk about where he was headed next, though at that point it was pretty obvious USC-East was the end destination. He was good natured, friendly, signed some random autographs for people and was poking fun at the waitress for asking for his ID to drink. All in all, one of the more entertaining brushes with fame one can have.

So yes, PWD - Spurrier is definitely worth the #1 spot on your list of coaches to share a beer with, he didn't dissapoint in the least.